All posts by yunhao2021

When COVID-19 hit in early March, Shuo Yang, a researcher from Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, took necessary measures to prepare her family with a two-week supply of food and stopped visiting grocery stores.

But vegetables and snacks ran out fast, so Yang needed to restock. Having no masks or other proper protection, she was caught in a predicament.

“I tried to order groceries from Costco through Instacart at first, but they had either told me that they were too busy to take any more orders, or they needed at least two weeks to deliver to door,” Yang said.

Chowbus Inc., an Asian food and grocery delivery startup headquartered in Chicago, was introduced to Yang by a friend. Launched as an application in 2016 by CEO Linxin Wen and chief technology officer Suyu Zhang, the company serves 20 major cities across North America including New York, Atlanta and Vancouver.

After President Trump declared a national emergency Friday due to the COVID-19 pandemic, representatives of Roche Diagnostics, Quest Diagnostics, LabCorp, Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, and some other private sector companies stood together behind the president, and each addressed their decisions of confronting the coronavirus collaboratively.

“Normally you view us as competitors, but today we’re focused on a common competitor, and that’s defeating the spread of coronavirus,” said Brian Cornell, CEO of Target Corp., during the press conference held by the President. “We look forward to work with the administration to do our fair share to alleviate this growing threat.”

FDA also sped up its approval process for tests developed by commercial labs. Roche Diagnostics, a Swiss-based multinational healthcare company, was the first beneficiary, as the test method they developed was approved within only “a few hours” after they submitted their application. Dr. Deborah L. Birx, U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy, said that this expedited process sets a “record time.” Continue reading Private sector hops on COVID-19 testing as the nation lags behind→

Ten hours after I arrived in Buenos Aires with my friends, I jumped onto the carnival bus not knowing where it was taking us.

It might be the happiest bus ride I’ve ever experienced. Men and women were singing and laughing aloud, drinking from the same pail of wine, clapping and flapping the bus ceiling for drumbeats.

Musicians took out their harmonicas and saxophones to accompany the chorus. And then everybody started to wave, dance and whistle to greet the little kids on streets who were greeting them back in the same way.

Chen Cui, a volunteer from Seattle and CEO of marketing company Matone, burst into tears as the plane finally started to pull out of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport at about 10:30 p.m. on Jan 28. He and other volunteers had worked hard to collect the medical supplies on the plane.

For several days before, fewer than 20 Chinese volunteers managed to get a Boeing 747 plane that flies to China filled with medical goods that the Chinese hospitals urgently need to combat the coronavirus outbreak. Most of the volunteers work or are attending college in the U.S.

The snowstorm that swept through Chicago Jan.17 canceled hundreds of flights but couldn’t deter thousands of participants who gathered at the Women’s March Chicago 2020 the next day.

The marchers gathered that Saturday to support gun violence prevention, climate justice, health care and pushed to get-out-to-vote, among the key issues galvanizing the fourth annual Women’s March at Chicago and cities across the country.